


Part Three: "You were fucked up by the blame."

by Anihan (Nakagami)



Series: Jim and John, and Moran watches on. [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Child John Watson, Female John Watson, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Moran's gender is a mystery, Multiple Universes Colliding, Other, Unwanted Endearments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakagami/pseuds/Anihan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title and chapter headings from Matt Corby's song Brother. Part three of three.</p><p>To get inside Moriarty's brain, one has to learn to laugh at inappropriate situations. Johann's entire life is inappropriate at the moment, so it's no wonder she's finding so much to laugh at. It's hard, but she may have just found the key to getting out of this situation. Or at least the key to understanding it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Part Three: "You were fucked up by the blame."

**Author's Note:**

> Warning(/advertisement?): Quite a lot of Jim messing things about in Johann's head. If that's your thing, drink up.

A day passes. Then a week. And another.

There is a day when Johann is terrified. She trembles and thinks herself alone in her room, and she doesn't come out to eat. Then there are the days when she's angry, or sad, or frantic; or all three on the days when the memory of bruises on her neck have made it stiffen, and then it becomes a day when she finds it difficult to roll out of bed.

Days like today.

Today is a day that bleeds into the others in silence. It is a day when Johann moves—but her body is the only part of her engaged in the actions. Wooden, she has become a puppet completely disparate from the girl she recently was. It is on a day like today when Jim looks in on the girl in his care, the girl who refuses to do more than glare each time she meets his eyes, and he wonders, for the first time, if she's depressed.

"John, my darling," Jim tempts that day, hoping to get a rise out of her. His second try, "My Splenda-sweet, saccharine doll," brings not even a flicker of life to her face. He takes her pulse, consults a doctor, but the results are inconclusive.

There’s nothing wrong with her. Best they can do is say she's merely still and unresponsive of apparently her own will.

(It helps that she talks to the doctors, as long as Jim isn't around.)

Today Johann sits at her desk by the second bookshelf, the empty one, and stares at the wall ahead of her, the blank one. Torn posters have been stacked underneath the desk she sits at, held down by the rows of books she had removed from the shelves the day before. Her spine is curved in most of the right places; curved in all of the correct places to leave her hunched slightly over the desk, elbows placed firmly in the crevice between  _abdominis rectus, sartorius,_ and _rectus femoris_  musculature; the crease at her thighs and groin.

She'll eat, sometimes, but right now she just stares, the tea tray in front of her untouched. Her hands are still on her knees, her feet propped up on the image of a dolphin jumping through the air above a sunset underneath the desk. _Rapunzel_ is sitting open next to the tea.

"Do you like that book, sweetie?" Jim asks, and he puts an arm around her as an attempt at comfort, not that she acknowledges him at all. "It's one of my favorites. Would you like me to read it to you?"

Johann blinks, and it's the first time that day that she's reacted to Jim's presence. "My hair isn't long enough," she admits. Abrupt as it was, that sentence was twice as long as anything she'd said to him in a week. His heart thrills, but she speaks no more.

Jim has a bad feeling about this new malaise. His John used to be full of helpless optimism - well, more like willful skepticism, but that worked out to be the same - but now she's a shell.

So he corners Moran in the den and asks, “Can you help her?"

The sniper glares.

The madman doesn't back down.

The sniper sighs. "You're the one who messed up, Boss. The kidlet still likes _me,_ " is the answer.

Jim bites off a nasty retort. "Yes, fine, then. You’re ungrounded. Go and fix this," he demands, and storms out of the flat. 

"...Temperamental berk." 

It's the first time Moran has been in the bedroom for nearly two weeks. Johann doesn't speak when spoken to, she doesn't seek out food, and only rarely leaves the desk or the bathroom or the trail of dresses she's left between the two, which means it is also the first time Moran has been in the same room as her. Somehow, somewhere, she'd gotten ahold of a seam puller and proceeded to pull the seams from each and every dress. For the past week, Johann has been wearing a pillowcase. Moran can't help but smile. "Did you dye that with your tea?"

The little girl smirks.

"Ah. Looks good on you."

Her feet shift. A piece of paper comes loose from beneath the desk but she doesn't seem to notice.

Moran sighs. _Down to business, then_. “In light of your recent cock-ups," said with heavy sarcasm, "you've been given back to me for a time. A bit of constructive criticism, Jim says.”

Johann rolls her eyes. ‘In light of  _your_ recent cock-ups, you mean,’ she mouths, but the girl doesn't look away from the wall. The paint has chipped where she's stared for so long.

 _Was it intentional? Did she stare at the wall so long that the paint felt uncomfortable enough to fuck off?_  Moran huffs. “Johann, you answer me now, or I will spank you.”

That got a response. It was monotone and rote, like she'd been debating the use of that particular line all day, and Moran hadn't expected anything like it. “Paddle or cane, sir? Except. No, you know me. I'm especially partial to you when it's all a surprise.”

The sniper gapes at her.

A small smile flickers into existence on her face. She turns to look at the sniper at last and delivers, absolutely deadpan, "I'm a glutton for punishment. Feed me."

Moran stares at the girl like a stranger had taken residence beneath her skin. “Christ, kid. James’s really done a number on your head.”

Frustration blooms to life at last on her despondent features, and she actually  _growls_ with her anger. Moran takes a step back in surprise, pulling both hands up to fend off a potential attack. “I don't know what you want from me,” she hisses, cutting Moran off. “Whatever it is you want, get it through your heads that  _I don't work like that_. Go find someone else. Someone who can take a punch. A cartoon, maybe.”

The sniper huffs again and quips, "'Best thing is, they work for peanuts.’”

The little girl’s eyes flash wide in surprise. And then again, in recognition. “Did... did you just call me Dumbo?”

Moran is surprised into laughter. “You actually got that reference?”

“I—actua—of course I did!  _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_? That movie is iconic **!** ”

Johann looks like she’s actually going to enthuse about this. It is regretable that a quick flash of grief comes over her face all too soon and the excitement locks down. Her expression drains away to a defensive pout, as if she thinks she has to fight back to get anywhere, and the assassin is sorry to see that spark go dark.

They both let out heavy sighs.

“...Come on, little bit. I'll make you a carrot cake.”

Her lips purse distastefully, but it seems she's decided to play along for now. (The assassin's shoulders sag in relief. This reaction is better than either of them could have hoped for.) “You call me that a lot. Little bit this, little bit that—what does that even mean? What am I supposed to be a ‘little bit’ of?”

“Apparently not Monica, Erica, Rita, or Tina," Moran says flippantly, and then hums a few lines of the song being quoted. 

Johann snorts when she recognizes it. “ _Mambo Number Five,_ Lou Bega.” Moran beams at her. She swallows something mean and shakes her head helplessly. “Stop. Just because I recognize those lyrics doesn’t mean I’m going to dance for you. So please, can you just go and leave me alone.”

The sniper grins and shakes out a no, elaborating, "Can't do that, little bit. I'd lose my laptop privileges. But let me tell you what I _can_ do for you."

Moran is about to say something inspiring, maybe. Something that attempts to not be trite but fails and still manages to leave a good impression, but this inspirational message (probably quoted from one of the motivational posters around Johann's feet) is interrupted. Jim, with the worst timing in all of history, bursts into the flat.

“Darling,” he calls, sing-song and cheerful. “I’m home! Where’s my supper?” He swans into the room and throws himself down on Johann’s bed, getting comfortable. He grins at their twin glares. It's obvious that they had been talking, and equally obvious that neither of them wanted him there. “ _Soooo_ , what are we talking about?”

“Me,” Johann growls, and proceeds to say more words to him in a single sentence than she had in the last two weeks. “And my need for peace and maybe some  _quiet_ for once in this hell hole.”

Jim looks absolutely delighted. “Okay. I can do that.”

There’s a pause. Moran and Johann both are staring at him incredulously.

“Your eyes say you don’t believe me. But no, I can. I can! I’ll just sit here with you until you want to talk to me.” He leans back into the pillows on her bed and settles down to wait.

This time, he makes good on his word. He just sits there. Quietly.

Staring at her.

A cleared throat. "Should we talk later?" Moran asks, but Johann turns away and refuses to say another word. Moran leaves once it becomes clear that the conversation won’t be continued. This leaves the little girl and the short man alone together. In silence. Johann goes back to reading.

For hours.

Before Jim really can’t just keep his mouth shut any longer.

“You know, statistically speaking," he begins, and Johann already knows that this is going nowhere good. She puts her head down on the desk and covers her ears with her arms. "There's only two options here. Either I, the bad guy, fall in love with you by the end of this movie, or you _will_ eventually find a way to kill me. I've just saved us both the trouble of guessing. You're welcome,” he teases.

The implications of that sentence are more than painfully disturbing. Johann shifts uncomfortably and says, quietly, “The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Sadly, cupcake, the gay is not an act.”

 “'Sadly'? What, did you  _want_ to fall in love with me?” Her eyes roll. "Oh yes, let's just live happily ever after." 

Jim slams a fist into the headboard. “No, I just don't want you  _dead_!”

The girl jumps and her eyes go round and wide. Her jaw drops just a bit, stereotypically closing with a small snap when she realizes that her mouth is hanging open. His anger, characteristically sudden, is just as brief as always. His pleasant smile is back in an instant. There is a moment where the two of them are just staring at each other like the other person routinely does heinous acts in the loo. Which neither of them do. Well, at least not in Johann's loo. The smile fades away. 

The awkward pause gets a little bit longer, and there is more than a little horror growing on Jim's face, quickly becoming frantic. "...John?" His voice cracks. 

The teen shakes her head to clear it. "You actually mean that.” Her voice cracks twice in just the first sentence, showing that they're both visibly torn by this revelation. “You meant it, you actually meant it, didn't you. You don't want me to die."

The horror on Jim’s face turns to absolute shock, tinged on the edges with panic. He clears his throat but his voice still comes out scratchy, high pitched, "Did you think I did?"

Her body language says yes. "I don't know what I thought,” she admits instead, eyes a little haunted. Hollow. “Don't think I thought at all, half the time. But you got to admit the evidence isn't in your favor."

" _Evidence_?" Jim shrieks, and storms to his feet, charging across the room. His hands are thrown wide enough to tackle a bull in full swing when he slams them on the desk on either side of Johann with the shocking force of his sudden, blinding rage. Johann flinches away and then stills within his grasp. He's pressed her right up against the edge with the chair between them, no doubt hurting him where it was jarred against his abdomen but he doesn't even care. He doesn't notice it. Johann cringes behind the wooden barrier and Jim snarls at her. 

"And what evidence would that be, my darling? Giving you a place to stay; decorating your room with you? Dressing you in the sweetest money can buy without turning you into a confectionery shoppe? No, not that? Then what! Adopting you?"

At this, Johann flinches out of her silence. "No, wait wait wait wait, what!? Since when am I adopted?!"

This is the moment when Jim goes a little ballistic.

" _ **What the fuck does that mean**_ ," he roars, and not even he is sure that that is a question at that volume. Jim screams incoherently, and Johann shoves the chair out between them and retreats across the room. He throws something. And keeps throwing things. He may even break something among the projectiles, but he doesn't aim a single thing at Johann, and the pattern of Jim's actions suddenly comes out a little cleaner to them both.

A porcelain doll had been painted to look like Johann, complete with thin lips the shade of a natural pink. The real, human hair had been matched to her exact color. It wore white overalls and a cream jumper. The doll shatters on the wall opposite her. Bits of sharp porcelain skitter about the floor in every direction; one catches Jim's foot and adds just a hint of blood to the proceedings, a trail of red footprints across the hardwood. He doesn't notice. The next projectile is also fine china, the tea tray from the desk. The sugar crunches. A book's spine tears.

Johann is quiet, crouched against the blank wall, the wall that would hold a window if it were a real home not an empty box. Her eyes don’t leave him except for when they stare blankly at the damage he’s doing, has already done, to her possessions. Some might call that arrangement of limbs and facial features 'fear'. Others, 'elation'. Something inside Johann cautions her to enjoy it and not to label it at all.

The rain of breakables trickles to a slow. Jim finally reigns himself in.

"All this time," he begins, then shakes his head, negates it. He's shaking. His hands are _shaking_ and _hers_ are still, absolutely still. It looks like it takes a tremendous amount of self control, so how must it feel?

Johann stares at him.

Jim laughs, a pale, bleeding sound, and begins again. His eyes go from sadness to anger to despair and then back again, circling round the emotional cyclone that is this man. He clears his throat awkwardly. "All this time, did you really think so ill of me?"

Johann's eyes, already wide with shock, widen even further, and her mouth falls open. At first she doesn't answer him because she's too busy staring at him like he's an idiot to be able to cram out _Hell yeah I did, you're more bonkers than a barrel full of_ _monkeys_ , but soon that excuse is buried in indecision. Should she go to him, comfort him? Or should she maintain her previous stance and reject him wholly? Neither of those options seem good.

Instead she backs away from him until the bed is standing between them, a paltry defense but at least it is a barrier, and she needs something solid at the moment. Something to separate them. "I need time to think about this," she stutters, and Jim snarls, causing her to jump and flinch even further away.

"Take all the time you need," he sneers, and he leaves the room with scent of anger in his wake. As always, the door is left wide open. The door to the flat slams.

Moran comes running in a moment later, out of breath. The sniper demands, "What the bloody hell was that about?"

"I don't know. No, stop, don't look at me like that! I don't know, alright?! He's just... Jim," she trails off. Moran grumbles, but eventually Johann is left alone.

It takes hours, but she does manage to sleep that night. It is late morning, nearly noon, before she even thinks to get out of bed. In the end, she doesn't move, because what would be the point?

A loon asks for your help. Societal rules say you should deny it. Like that commercial about the hare who is trying to get a bowl of cereal. The children say no, and no again, and no no no... and no one ever tells them to stop, because cereal is for children, and only children you know because that bunny was _someone's_ child - and those children in the commercial will share with _each other_ , but not with the hare. Not with strangers. The moral of the story is to be greedy and help the people you feel close to. To be close-minded. To learn hate.

Except... Johann wasn't raised that way. There was always that one unspoken rule about being good to people, all people, especially those in need.

Jim certainly has a lot of need.

Not that Johann wants all of the guilt that that thought entails, but she can acknowledge it. She can. Jim needs something, and he and Moran certainly think she has it. Who knows, maybe she does.

The bed dipping behind her is her first clue that she isn't alone. She has a brief moment of shock, soon followed by fear, a flash-flood of panic, and then long, grasping arms wrap themselves around her shoulders and chest. It was Jim, she knew it was Jim, _of course_ it was, you could tell it was Jim the instant he first touched her, and she screams and struggles all the more for it. Especially for his words. _God_ , the man has no bedside manner.

"Sh, no, it's all all right, I won't hurt you. I just want you to fall asleep in my arms. Shh, baby girl, you're beautiful, just go back to sleep."

 _Not creepy at all,_ she thinks, and she gets in a good elbow to his gut for good luck. Jim grunts, but his frown is more confusion than anger or pain.

"Don't know why you struggle so. I won't do anything wrong. And I'd rather not use force."

She headbutts him. The impact jars her sinuses and she snorts. " _Actually_ , I'm okay with force. Just tell Moran to wake me when you're dead." Just because the opportunity has presented itself, his wrist an open expanse before her, she embeds her teeth in his arm and bears down until she feels the bones grate together. Exhilaration burns through her in an instant; she can taste the bones grinding, can literally feel the distinction between some of them, and the memorization mnemonic merely heightens her enthusiasm. Senior Lecturers Take Prostitutes To The Carlton Hotel: Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetral, Pisiform, Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate, Hamate.

 _That's his trapezium on my tongue,_ she thinks, panting harshly over his pulse. Even the thought is intoxicating. _The edge of his scaphoid, between my teeth. I can feel-- the edge of the first metacarpal--_ Her jaw clenches.

 _Oh, God. I could dislocate his thumb with my_ mouth _.  
_

"Bitch!" He swears at the pain, not at her, or so he quickly tries to assuage, even as he's shaking her about by the place where her teeth are sunk into his arm, trying and failing to knock free. "No, darling, not you, I'd never say something like that to you, I like you, you're not a bitch at all. Just let _go_ already!"

She does, if only because she needs air. Her teeth move from the bony wrist where she couldn't get much purchase to a couple inches further up his lower forearm, and she digs into the fleshy skin there in a second bite, just as voracious.

Jim yowls. This time, she doesn't let go until she tastes blood.

Vindictive, victorious, she snarls at him. "It's all right, Jimmy  _dearest_ , I won't hurt you. Just stop struggling." Despite the alliterative coincidence, Johann felt viciously proud of the bruises that form near instantly on the thin skin of his wrist. She wants to ensure that the bite mark scars but she doesn't know how, and he shoves her away before she can improvise.

He's breathing heavily, glowering down at her, and she offers him the most innocent of her fiercely proud smirks. She's able to meet him glare for glare.

"I can see that you need a minute," Jim sneers at last, and then he leaves Johann alone.

 _I won,_ she laughs. She sags against the blankets, blood in her mouth, and she laughs until exhaustion crashes down, and then she laughs a bit more. Her heart is beating steadily, unencumbered, and for the moment she feels stronger than she has in months.

 _Not too shabby for a Saturday,_  she thinks.


End file.
